Bon Papa Haitis Golden Years by Bernard Diederich (2008-05-03)

This is Haiti, pearl of the Antilles, during the presidency of General Paul E. (Bon Papa) Magloire (1950-56). It was an exciting time, when Haitians stood tall, and their country flourished, as reported in the pages of the Haiti Sun newspaper. It was a time when the arts blossomed and tourists discovered a wonderful, bewitching land with the most friendly people in our hemisphere. It was a time when President and Mrs. Paul E. Magloire were welcomed and wined and dined at the White House by President Dwight Eisenhower and Mamie Eisenhower, and yes, they slept in the Lincoln bedroom. Haiti Sun's publisher, Bernard Diederich, who reported on and photographed the period of Bon Papa, co-authored the best-selling book Papa Doc: The Truth about Haiti Today along with Al Burt of the Miami Herald in 1968. The publisher did his very best to present a balanced and unbiased history of Haiti of the period. Those who did not live in this period will be surprised to learn of the other Haiti, the beautiful bygone Haiti in which the future was full of promise. "Written as a memoir, with all the shifts in tone and voice, time and place that accompany that genre,...the book remains a captivating document of the time...Complied from Diederich's memories and primary documents culled from his days at the Haiti Sun, it offers an archive of an important and understudied period of Haitian history." --Greg Beckett,University of Chicago, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 31, No. 2